Let Dreamers Lie
by Bayonet
Summary: When you're stuck with a man in a Guy Fawkes mask for what seems like eternity, you tend to learn things about yourself you never knew.
1. Chapter 1

Hey guys! Bayonet here, letting you know that I am tentatively entering back into the realm of fanfiction. While this probably won't be permanent, I'm certainly going to try (schoolworkdead Bayonet.) Ew. Anyway, this one is going to become (hopefully) a piece done by me and my friend Roony,. We''l be switching on and off on the chapters. She began this one, so I'll post the first chapter under her name!

Copyright jazz- V for Vendetta is copyright to other people, not me. Only the story plot of this particular story, not the books or movie, is ours. Thanks!

While being essentially kidnapped by a man in a Guy Fawkes mask was certainly strange, Evey thought that one of the most jarring aspects that came with it was never knowing the time of day. There was no sense of day or of night. Time became a memory, a routine. She came to sleeping when she felt like it, not when the clock suggested she should. The same for when she ate. Though V had somehow managed to obtain all sorts of edible treasures such as butter, cocoa, various fruits, ginger, cinnamon, spices, and other delicacies (she was still mulling over what Turkish delights were), Evey used them in strict moderation. She was obliged to use the kitchen, fridge, and stove and any utensils. Evey wondered if V allowed her such privileges out of his trust for her or… Or knowing that if she tried anything, he could easily stop her or if by some miracle she was successful in injuring him, she still wouldn't be able to escape the Shadow Gallery.

Those were two things she caught him at: eating and sleeping. He cooked for her on occasion in that dashing apron, with or without his gloves (she'd gotten into the habit of not looking, both out of courtesy and escaping nausea). But he never partook in the meal himself. Undoubtedly, that would require him to remove his mask which he definitely would never do before her, but still he never left the room with food for himself or anything.

She also never saw him retire per se, or mention fatigue. Though he would sit and read, he never set a tome aside and lounged. He never stretched out on the luxurious daybeds and sofas, and she certainly never seemed to have awoken him. He was always aware and at work at something. Or at least, when she was present.

Through these habits, Evey could tell he was perpetuating a certain image. A nonhuman one. Call it a ghost, a demi-god, even demon, but it was an image that subtly insisted 'I am more than a mere mortal'.

Which she believed to be total bullocks.

She thought she'd test him out. Not directly; instead she would lure him into stumbling a little in his façade.

So she stopped sleeping. And started almost following him around. Not obviously going from room to room, but keeping a close eye on him whenever she could. One of them had to sleep eventually.

_I can last as long as you can_.

She lasted longer than she had feared she would, and perhaps that was out of pure will. She came to drinking caffinated tea every three hours to help. And still, it seemed to come to nothing. He never once was out of her sight for more than half an hour at a time and those instants were few and far between. She realized she'd have to conserve her energy, and so she situated herself on a sofa with tea and a book and listened to him walk about the shadow gallery.

Eventually, he came to the very edge of the wide portal to the room she was in. Despite the painted smile, she could sense he was a little concerned about her.

"It's two in the morning," he noted.

"Think I'll stay up a little longer," she replied simply, trying to focus on stirring her tea.

"Very well." He rose swiftly, his cloak whirls about him like a pair of great black wings.

"You'll have to sleep eventually," he remarked offhandedly, and she could almost see the smile under the smile. He was mocking her. "We all do."

Though slightly irritated that he'd probably figured her out, Evey coolly sipped her tea and pounced on that slight verbal slip.

"You sleep? I thought ideas didn't sleep." It was said, toned, as a simple, innocent observation. But, the glint in her eyes spoke otherwise. She was teasing him. But only a little. He hardly seemed to mind.

"But from where to ideas come?" he asked, raising a gloved finger to emphasize his point, "Dreams. And dreams, while ever present, only reveal themselves most in sleep."

He turned to leave, but she wasn't going to let him go that easily. He had, after all, taken her prisoner. Oh, and he was _so _full of this character of his. "But you sleep."

He paused, turning his face back to her ever-so slightly. "Yes."

She gave a slight shrug, turning her attention back to her tea. "Seems almost too human for you."

She glanced back up at him, though it was rather pointless to. Just that smirking Fawkes mask staring back at her. Yet a chill had passed between them. She was pricking him with her remarks. Verbally exposing him as not some superhero, but only a man in a mask. A small part of her warned that this was stupid. That she knew he was dangerous. And though she refused to back down, she was also perplexed. She, who was always afraid, was directly confronting perhaps the most dangerous man in the country. Unstable, skilled, deadly. Her captor. And yet… And yet she persisted.

"Do you ever have nightmares?" she asked, pushing it even further. Trying to point out that he wasn't so strong, that he wasn't so above her and the rest of the people.

He seemed ready to reply. "Do you?"

"…All the time." she replied honestly, not adding that most of them involved her parents, her brother, or, of late, _him_. "Or, sometimes, I dream of nicer times."

He answered in that flowing voice of his, that quietly excited tone when he spoke and gave meaning and poetry to the words. "And from that statement is derived twin envy. I know no fear, unlike you." She flinched slightly. He'd sounded so superior, yet…pitying. "So I do not have nightmares, although I do on occasion awake on fire." _On fire? What?_ she wondered, but did not interrupt. "But you can dream of better days."

She frowned. "You don't?"

"I dare to hope. Dream? I dare not take the risk."


	2. Chapter 2

Copyright Jazz- Once again, V and friends do not belong to us. Only the particular plot of this story.

-------------

So it was a game, was it? A game of wits and persistence. Well, he was a patient man. He could certainly put up with this for the few nights that it lasted.

"Think I'll stay up a little longer." She glanced breifly up at him from the book she was perusing, flipping the page in an off-handedly smug manner. He could clearly see the fatigue written across her face, however, and gently tried to mock her to sleep.

"You'll have to sleep eventually. We all do." It came to his tongue more willingly than he had expected, and it seemed a little harsh, even for the soft mockery he was sure she had come to expect.

Was he comparing himself to something more than human? Certainly not. More like less than human. Comparitive studies at odd hours of the night. It could be a book of poetry. He was glad he wore a mask, the maze of emotional responses he'd have to make with his face as the conversation deepened would have been beyond him at this point.

"But you sleep."

Of course he did. To think he did not was simply... well, to put it quite frankly, stupid. He may of sacrificed himself to an idea, but ideas were just that. Intangible, untouchable. He was very much alive, living, breathing, at this point in time turned at a slight angle, perhaps 25 degrees, busily flexing one gloved hand unconsciously. Odd, did he do that all the time?

This _was _a game, he knew it. Evey may have moved into the realm of trust, but she still wanted to keep him on his toes. She wanted to know him, not the cold mask that the whole of London by now recognized. This is V, he is a terrorist. He is an evil, evil man. They must get more creative on the television stations, repeating words in one sentence for emphasis could only bore the viewer.

"So I do not have nightmares, although I do on occasion awake on fire." What in the world was he talking about? Of course, she knew nothing about his past. Not a scrap. So this wouldn't make sense to her. Her childish frown, chin resting on the top of the book she had long forgotten to pretend to read, made him want to tell her. It was an urge, and he could supress it. She never really told him anything, why should he give her any lead? No, no, no.

Silly little girl. The conversation was done, he had ended it by his own hand. He registered with an almost half-awake consciousness that he was sweeping away, boots clicking softly on the marble floors. He always entertained that this was the way a panther sounded when stalking it's prey, the soft paws, and the hard nails on the forest floor. Then he realized he was comparing himself to a large tropical cat. And then he realized he was insane.

He had a bedroom. This she knew, she had slept in it on more than one occasion, when he was out on the town, as it were. He flipped through the things he assumed she knew about him, either through experience or blind guessing. He slept. He had told her that. It was a flimsy little pamphlet, the facts she most likely kept stored in her mind about it. Most of it was trivial. He made breakfast while wearing a floral apron, he fought, and on occasion talked to, a suit of armor, he enjoyed watching old music, he liked to dance.

She could now add that he didn't dream. Or at least... he didn't categorize them as dreams. It fell along the lines of him sleep-walking. Of course, he could thank his own constant alert nature for the fact that he seemed to give logical responses to her questions while he was doing the sonambulism. Either that, or he would give some answer so ludicrous and vague that she would have to shrug it off as his unusual self.

His legs betrayed him tonight, it seemed. He ended up in the carousel room, instead of where he had intended. He wanted to take a roundabout way and return to Evey's side, and talk to her. And not be mysterious, stalking about the Shadow Gallery like an oversized black cat, grumbling and laying himself out on any flat surface available. The nature and identity he had formed himself into seemed unable to let go of the mask, however, and now he stood in the gloom of the carousel room.

The glint of dominoes scattered across the floor, in a yet unfinished pattern. He remembered when Evey had first come here. She had stumbled through them in the dark and ruined his labors of love. She knew better now, it didn't phase her to step over and around the dominoes to reach the other side of the room.

He slid his gloved hands over the carved legs of the suspended horse, one of many scattered across the room. This one was his favorite by far. It was dark green, full of blue swirls and a whole neck of beads. It's mane was carved to look like seaweed, and it's hooves looked more like fins than the normal legs of a horse.

Why was it his favorite? He knew not the reason, he knew not the rhyme. He hadn't seen the sea, not in recent memory. He was too busy to do such things. Was he?

Evey was on the move, he heard her cross the kitchen and into the bedroom she had inhabited for the past couple of months. He knew she was offhandedly looking for him, thinking he didn't know where she was going. Bed. He nodded to himself, turning towards the doorway as if he could see through the walls at her slight frame crossing his line of vision.

She was sensible, of course, only after she was insane. She probably was trying to do both at the same time, like he did.

He slipped one glove off slowly, looking at the scarred flesh beneath with a bemused interest. Hideous. In ancient Sparta, deformed children were thrown to the sea. Perhaps that was the connection he found in the carousel horse. He should be thrown to the sea, then maybe the government would be happy, the world would be satisfied, and the earth could dissolve into beautiful ruin.

He was, afterall, one man. He couldn't hold onto a revolution single-handedly.

-------------

This was HARD to write. Just in case you were wondering, my writing style differs from Rooney's. She wrote the first chapter, you can find her on here. And I'm also using both movie and graphic novel references here, so if you get confused... sorry?


End file.
